I remember watching Zeitgeist and growing very excited for the first few hours. After I got a full nights rest, I realized maybe it was a little far fetched. Ultimately, it drifted from my mind. What did stay, were the parallels between the different religions that they hounded on in the first part. Before I watched the video, it occured (I have no idea how this word is spelled, but I like that this spelling makes me think 'occult') to me that most present day religions are just slight modifications of their predecessors. It seems a lot of religion that's left on the planet are just mutated forms of dying out prior religions, refitted for the new zeitgeist (couldn't help myself). So the first chunk really played on what I was feeling at the time. In all fairness, I was rather jaded from running across some other video talking about tax evasion because "there's no law saying you have to pay taxes" and learning this was a 20 year old sham.

doc livingston: I'm not promoting Colombine type activity. I should have worded it differently. Reading your analysis, leads me to believe I made some mistakes as far as semantics are concerned, nothing more. Consider the credo "everyone is different" so how can "normal" exist? On the other hand the credo also says "everyone is different, yet we are all the same...and that is what is normal." THanks for not mouthing off at me like a lunatic, though, and congradulations for giving me a bit more to think about.

And while I agree that killing is evil, I don't think it's exclusively "abnormal." It's Normal for all social animals to fight and kill each other( again, I am NOT advocating violence), but look at the animal kingdom below the human race. Male chimpanzees tend to kill the children of mother chimpanzees. WHy? Because a nursing mother cannot go into heat. This happens all across the animal kingdom (And, yes, humans are part of that animal kingdom and they Regularly kill each other, every day). I chose the Chimp analogy, as they are the most genetically similar to human beings. This brings me to the semantic misunderstanding...humans and other animals kill each other Regularly... Regularity should not be confused with normalcy. I don't think the Colombine kids, or that Virginia Tech loony are anything close to "normal." At the same time I don't think there is a single world leader who is normal, either, semantics notwithstanding. They are sick people, who like you said, have no empathy for their fellow human beings. Now, before we go any further, you are right, we are getting off topic, and should stop right now.

The thing about everyone being magical and unique snowflakes is that snowflakes only really look different when examined closely. In a crowd, even they tend to look the same. Normal behavior is average non destructive behavior. It can be seen through society, and there's a reason these norms exist. Chaos tends to hurt people.

I watched Zeitgeist a few months ago, and was dismayed when they went from condemnation of religion to 9/11 conspiracies, then on to World Bank theory and the people that "really control the world". They also ignore some simple facts in the first part of the video. What I remember specifically is the statement that there is no historical record of a man named Christ existing in the Mediterranean area in the time he was supposed to be alive. That's true, in that no one refers to a man named Christ--but Christ 1) isn't a name, it's a title (anointed one, or somewhere thereabouts) and 2) There are many, many reports of a leader of men who was the son of a woman named Mary (referred to as 'The Son of Mary'). The likelihood of it ever being proven one way or another is low--the organized church has been around for so long that there are bound to be conflicting or falsifiable claims of proof.

Mostly, things like Zeitgeist make just enough assumptions to convince themselves and seem really well thought out, but there's a lot of logical fallacies that go on in that movie that make the argument weaker because the writer didn't feel like reasoning them out properly. The film resorts to a lot of logic circles a lot more gross inaccuracies to make it's point, but is told with such fervor that it seems all well reasoned.

@tedcroland - yeah. I'm inclined to agree with you. I didn't do much follow up research on the film other than talking to my brother about it who had shown it to me and done more looking into it. The Real ID thing still kind of freaks me out, but I really don't understand why a one world organization is so threatening. Isn't that the kind of peaceful co-existence we've been looking for on this planet? It reminds me of when I used to get freaked out about it because it was a sign of the end times in the Bible. But I've long left those days in the past with my religion, so what reason is there to fear it now? I mean, what is so terribly awful about more efficient trade? The only thing really creeps me out with Real ID and the passports are the bloody RF transmitters. Who the fuck packs an RF transmitter beaming your personal information to the bloody world? That's the kind of stuff I really don't like because of right to privacy.

Isn't that the kind of peaceful co-existence we've been looking for on this planet?

A friend of mine put it to me pretty concisely the other day:

He basically said that each stage of government that has advanced has made things better. Independent states, democracy, it's all loosened up trade and made the quality of life better. Made it easier for manufacturing of new technology. Life gets better with advancement in government...I see a correlation. I'm afraid of ONE PERSON controlling the world, but what possible reason would these people have at making the quality of life worse when they get to the point that they control the world? Presuming there really is a group of people that want to get there. It seems like there's more profit to be made keeping people at odds anyway...